Hard to get excited about some sports

Five weeks till the British Open. Deep August until high school football kicks in, and not until September do the pros get it on.

So, we're left to gnaw on a professional summer diet so sparse it'd make Pavarotti a 32.

Sure, soccer -- football to the diehards -- is in full-stride, but it's hard to get jazzed about a sport that comes on way too early or way too late.

It's not the same swigging from a frosty mug, yelling ever-so-softly trying not to wake the neighbors, peacefully six hours into REM sleep at 3 in the morning. When the World Cup ends, soccer will fade back into the shadows, and we'll be left to wonder for another four years what purpose the MLS really serves.

Baseball? Show of hands of how many out there really care this sport exists, let alone the demand for a schedule longer than the proposed settlement list at the Vatican.

Interleague play was a great idea the first season it came about in 1997, but everything else that's wrong with the game -- steroids, no salary cap, Bud Selig -- seems to greatly outweigh the positives.

Throw in a strike -- and I'm not talking a Roger Clemens kind, either.

Basketball is an even bigger joke.

Do we really need two professional leagues? The NBA is painful enough to watch without talk of upping those fingernail-on-the-chalkboard-annoying five-game series' to seven, commish.

One word. Contraction.

At the Florida Sports Awards two weeks ago, Ron Rothstein, head coach of the WNBA's Miami Sol, was asked backstage by a reporter when the season began and what he hoped to accomplish.

"We're four games in," he said.

Sports at its finest ladies and gents.

Certainly, there are some things to savor and look forward to on the professional realm.

Boxing fans can eye a few storylines. Former WBO heavyweight champ Ray Mercer takes on Vladimir Klitschko June 29. It's likely the 41-year-old Mercer's last crack at salvaging a title shot.

As somewhat of an area tie, Mercer, the 1988 Olympic gold medalist, spent portions of his life in Jacksonville.

This also might be the summer when light heavyweight champ Roy Jones Jr. actually fights, well, someone that boxing fans and experts have actually heard of.

He's already iced Bernard Hopkins years back, so the logical choice would be WBO titlist Dariusz Michalczewski, an unbeaten 45-0 machine. Will it happen?

Probably not, even though Jones' mouthy proclamation the night of the Lennox Lewis-Mike Tyson fight seemed to set the wheels in motion.

Follow the bouncing yellow sphere.

Will it be Wimbledone for Pete Sampras, saddled with a 29-tournament losing skid? Another all Williams' final, with Venus and Serena Williams, seeded No. 1 and 2, respectively, for the event that begins June 24.

NASCAR has quite a few angles to follow, mainly with the young mix of drivers on the circuit. Does Jimmie Johnson have the car to win the points race? Will Jeff Gordon ever win again? Does anything outside of our new computer system crash more than Kevin Harvick?

Then there's Tiger, the first golfer since Jack Nicklaus in 1972 to bag the first two legs of the Grand Slam with wins at the Masters and U.S. Open. He'll go for the third piece the week of the British Open beginning July 15. Until then, set your alarm clocks. It's going to be an early one.